Going to the moon & complaining about it

Rabid Puppy Finalists’ Reactions, Compiled

Some Hugo finalists who were on Theodore “Vox Day” Beale’s block-voting slate have had things to say about it. Some have not. Below, I’ve compiled the comments I’ve come across in the hope that it’s helpful for people who are interested in the finalists’ reactions.

I’m not saying that all the finalists are obligated to say something about this, or that the Hugo voters who are not so inclined should really care. Some finalists don’t want to share their opinions (in case they have any) and some voters couldn’t care less what an author says, and that’s completely fine.

However, this is another special Hugo year. The vast majority of finalists were gamed on the ballot by a slate-voting campaign and practically a single person has decided what the ballot will look like. He put his troll army of about 200 or 300 people to work, and that was enough to render most of the other 3700 voters’ opinions meaningless. That’s how Hugo math works — even a small number of slate-voters have a huge advantage because the pool of potential nominees is so vast and honest voters’ votes are dispersed so thin. A rule change will probably take care of this next year, but we are stuck with it for now.

All in all, it’s an awkward situation for a writer to be in — being on a shortlist for a major award after someone hacked the nominations. Worse, it was hacked by a bigoted asshole.

At this point, we don’t know for sure which of the Rabid Puppy nominees would have made it without Beale’s help, but there’s no doubt that some would have. Neil Gaiman and Lois McMaster Bujold, for example, already have their closets full of Hugos, so it’s quite likely that they were going to be there, slate or not. With others, it’s difficult to say.

The thing I’m interested in here is what do the nominees make of the situation: What do they think about the Rabid Puppies campaign, Beale’s Hugo vandalism and the fact that they are (partly, possibly) on the ballot as a result of those?

I’ll be updating this. Please comment if there’s something that should be added.

BEST NOVEL

Jim Butcher (The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass)

I think Butcher, who was one of the few big name Puppy candidates last year, has said absolutely nothing on the subject. In 2015, he ended up below No Award in the novel category despite his huge following.

Neal Stephenson (Seveneves: A Novel)

Stephenson is another writer who seems to never comment on fan politics and maybe that’s wise of him. Beale seems to be entertainingly uncertain about the guy. He has attacked Seveneves for its “gamma male” mentality (whatever MRA crap that is) on the other hand, but also celebrated Stephenson as one of the great “blue SF authors”. I sense some wishful thinking in this quote from Vox Popoli blog: “I cannot tell if Stephenson is writing with a straight face, or, as I strongly suspect, taking the piss out of Pink SF.”

BEST NOVELLA

Daniel Polansky (The Builders)

Polansky’s novella was published through Tor.com which was the target of a Puppy boycott last year, and the writer himself has little sympathy for the Rabid Puppies.

It’s been, frankly, a frustrating week. An essentially private person, I resent intensely having been dragged into a controversy which I had no role in creating and little interest in generally. My initial reaction was to withdraw from the contest immediately [–] but upon consideration, and in consultation with some of my fellow nominees, I’ve decided to stay in, which seems to be the least-worst option. I’m reasonably convinced it minimizes the harm which the organizers of the slate intended to do to the award itself. If you read the Builders, and you thought it was deserving of a Hugo, by all means, vote for it. If you preferred the work of one of the other fine nominees, vote for that. If you want to no-decision the lot of us, that’s entirely understandable as well. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of a matter which has already cost me more in terms of time and energy than I would have preferred to offer to anything that isn’t my work, family, or friends.

But before I sign off, a quick word to those who are upset about the whole thing; don’t let it get to you too much. Every moment you spend being angry, every furious blog post, every back and forth with a moron over twitter, is a small victory you have offered to your opponents. It is to you to decide if you are offended, angered, insulted. A righteous soul needs not concern themselves with the doings of fools. Link

Lois McMaster Bujold (Penric’s Demon)

Bujold was nominated in novella category, but I’m pretty sure that Edward James’s nonfiction book about her would have made a great Best Related Work finalist. Sadly, Rabid Puppies made sure its not there. Bujold dropped a short note on Rabid Puppies in Goodreads.

As a point of information, “Penric’s Demon” was conscripted onto the “Rabid Puppies” slate without my notification or permission, and my request that it be removed was refused. Link

Brandon Sanderson (Perfect State)

After discussing how he disagreed with last year’s Sad Puppy campaign participants but feels that they were also not treated right, Sanderson goes on to describe his antipathy towards Rabid Puppies:

As most probably agree, the Sad Puppies are not the big problem here. There is another group who are simply determined to burn the house down, with everyone inside. Though there might be people in this group who are sincere, I believe that their leader (and much of the movement) is instead just trying to stir up controversy. They paint targets on people expressly to subject them to hateful ridicule. They have targeted friends of mine this way, and have said terrible, terrible things. They worked to nominate things simply out of spite and amusement. I want nothing to do with them at all. Link

Alastair Reynolds (Slow Bullets)

The Welsh space opera writer has been very critical of Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy campaigns, and has taken the time to confront his fans who didn’t like that.

As several commentators have noted, the eventual ballots are quite strongly biassed in favour of Rabid Puppy choices. The unpalatable conclusion to be drawn from this is that my story, good as its chances were, probably wouldn’t have made the cut were it not for the RP block vote. However, I didn’t ask for those votes and in fact I expressly requested that my story not be slated. Kate Paulk (of the Sads) and Vox Day (of the Rabids) both declined my requests. Link

BEST NOVELETTE

Cheah Kai Wai (Flashpoint: Titan)

The writer from Singapore, whose real name is Benjamin Cheah (according to his website), seems to be one of the few Rabid Puppy authors who share Beale/Day’s ideology. In his blog, he enthusiastically supports the misogynist evangelist Roosh V and bashes “social justice warriors”.

I happen to agree with many of Vox Day’s choices, including the ones that made it to the finalists. And Vox Day struck back at the people who have slimed, defamed and insulted him for decades by exposing their hyprocrisy. He did so simply by posting a list of recommendations for the Hugo Awards, which people are free to follow, critique or ignore. As far as I’m concerned, what he did is good in my book. Link

Hao Jingfang (Folding Beijing)

The Chinese writer hasn’t commented on this, and whether she is even aware of the whole mess is uncertain.

Stephen King (Obits)

No comment. The Google search for Stephen King puppies gives us this adorable corgi picture:

David VanDyke (What Price Humanity?)

David VanDyke has spelled out in various places (before and after the final ballot was released) that he doesn’t want to take any part in culture wars and that he only sent out his work for the Pournelle anthology — it’s the same Castalia House book that Cheah Kai Wai’s novelette was published in.

I’d like to say that I’m not a puppy, kitten or animal analogue of any sort. Writing a story for Jerry Pournelle’s There Will Be War anthology was an opportunity to contribute to that excellent body of work, not some kind of socio-political statement. Link

BEST SHORT STORY

S.R. Algernon (Asymmetrical Warfare)

S.R. Algernon’s short story was published in the prestigious Nature magazine. I’m not aware of the writer saying anything about the Hugo mess. On a comment to this post, S.R. Algernon notified me that he has discussed nomination in Goodreads.

Second, I recognize that, with the politics of the situation being what it is, many worthy contenders did not make it on the Short Story ballot. After some consideration, I have chosen to defer to the position of the Hugo Administration and allow “Asymmetrical Warfare” to contend for the Hugo in good faith, irrespective of its presence on any slates.

“Asymmetrical Warfare” has received some positive reviews (for example, see Lela Buis’s review). I believe that the aim of the Hugo Awards should be to give the science fiction and fantasy community writ large a voice in recognizing work that has merit. I do not want to deprive them of their chance to vote next month, whether they are voting tactically or based on their opinion of the story itself. Link

Thomas Mays (The Commuter)

Thomas Mays (whose self-published short story was originally written for the Baen Fantasy Award but didn’t place) has already declined the nomination, saying:

To be clear, Vox Day and I have worked together before, but I did not request or engineer my appearance on his slate. I’m very proud of my story “Within This Horizon”, that I contributed to the first Riding the Red Horse anthology, which allowed me to be in the same volume as friends and acquaintances Chris Kennedy, Christopher Nuttall, Ken Burnside, and one of my literary heroes, Jerry Pournelle. I have been interviewed for Castalia House. However, Vox and I disagree on many political and social points and I am neither a Rabid Puppy nor a member of his Dread Ilk. My stories have no real ideological bent right or left. And while I cannot dispute the experiences of others which brought the Sad and Rabid Puppy movements into existence, I did not approve of the straight-slate bloc voting that so damaged fandom last year. [–] Rather than eat a shit sandwich, I choose to get up from the table. Link

Juan Tabo and S. Harris (If You Were an Award, My Love)

I have no clue where to look for the thoughts of the co-authors of this “humorous” Rachel Swirsky pastiche published in Vox Popoli — or if “Juan Tabo” and “S. Harris” even exist, for that matter.

Charles Shao (Seven Kill Tiger)

This is another story from Pournelle’s Castalia House anthology There Will Be War X. No comment on Hugos as far as I know.

Do you know about the Sad Puppies, a group of people who try to disrupt voting for the Hugo Awards every year?

Don’t know about any puppies but it’s BAD NEWS BEARS if you want to disrupt awards. That is a scoundrel tactic and probably part of Ted Cobbler’s devilman plan. Ted Cobbler is notorious devil and has been seen using dark magic to control puppies around the neighborhood. I do not support the devilman agenda but i think that Space Raptor Butt Invasion proves that LOVE IS REAL and no scoundrels can stop that. Especially not some dumb dogs. Link

Update: On May 5th Tingle announced that the Gamergate hate victim #1, Zoë Quinn, has agreed to accept the Hugo for him. Later on, Tingle has moved to full-scale reverse-trolling the Rabid Puppies, registering therabidpuppies.com domain and using it to promote Quinn’s online abuse victim support organization, N.K. Jemisin and Rachel Swirsky.

BEST RELATED WORK

Marc Aramini (Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe)

Wolfe-scholar Marc Aramini is published by Castalia House — and judging by this comment left on File770, he is quite happy with his publisher. Aramini acknowledges that without Beale he wouldn’t be on the ballot but doesn’t draw the same conclusion as some filers: that perhaps he therefore shouldn’t be on the ballot in the first place.

From an author’s perspective Vox is the only publisher who treated me with any respect, and certainly given the obscurity of my work it would never have appeared on a ballot without him. His contract included a hardback and a second volume to finish the job regardless of sales,which he expected to be negligible, and that was well before any Hugo issues of 2015. I expect that there is a better than 70% chance that No Award will take related work, but I know that I wrote my book with all of my heart, soul, and out of love and respect for Gene Wolfe, who should have won a Hugo years ago, regardless of the things which surround it. Link

Jeffro Johnson (The First Draft of My Appendix N Book)

Scroll to the Best Fan Writer section for the comments.

Daniel Eness (Safe Space as Rape Room)

No comment that I know of. His multi-part essay contains so many of Beale’s talking/trolling points (such as John Scalzi being a rapist) that it’s not hard to guess what is Eness’s take on the situation.

Vox Day (SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police)

Well, the man himself!

Well done, all of you Rabids. Very well done. According to Mike Glyer, the Rabid Puppies placed 64 of its 81 recommendations on the final ballot. I understand we actually would have done a little better than that were it not for the odd withdrawal or disqualification. [–] You understand, as the other side does not, that there is no end to cultural war.

Moira Greyland (The Story of Moira Greyland)

I haven’t seen any comments by Greyland, and I’m not very keen to look for them. After reading her nonsensical gay-hate manifesto and learning that she is a victim of horrible crimes herself, I think that she really should be left alone. The fact that Beale included this in the Rabid Puppies slate tells us what kind of a person he is (not that we didn’t know it already).

BEST EDITOR ‐ SHORT FORM

Jerry Pournelle

The editor of the Castalia House anthology There Will Be War isn’t optimistic about the whole thing but hasn’t spoken about slates specifically.

I’m unlikely to get this one – I’m a good editor but that’s hardly my primary occupation – but I admit I’d like to. I was already going to Kansas City this August, so I’ll be there, but I doubt there’s much need to write a thank you speech. Link

BEST EDITOR ‐ LONG FORM

Vox Day

Scroll to Best Related Work for comments.

Jim Minz

No comment from the Baen editor.

Toni Weisskopf

No comment from the other Baen editor. According to many Puppy apologists, Weisskopf’s loss to No Award last year was a travesty of some sort and she has been their hero for years. However, she has been very careful not to say anything.

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST

Lars Braad Andersen

No comment.

Larry Elmore

No comment.

Abigail Larson

No comment.

Michal Karcz

No comment.

Larry Rostant

No comment.

BEST SEMIPROZINE

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

No comment.

Daily Science Fiction

No comment.

Sci Phi Journal

No comment.Sci Phi Journal editor Jason Rennie commented on Brad R. Torgersen’s blog that he (like Vox Day) doesn’t care about winning a Hugo one bit. In his opinion, everybody who voted No Award last year are “brain damaged morons” and “head injury patients”.

Do you know how much Vox cares about actually winning one of those cheap plastic rockets? Not at all would probably be overstating the case AFAICS. Heck, i’m on the ballot twice and I don’t really care about winning one either. Makes no difference to me. I don’t expect it to translate into subs for Sci Phi Journal and that is the only validation I care about. It might boost the profile of SuperversiveSF some and that is welcome but that will happen whether we win or not.

But Vox finds the idea of them burning the awards down and doing exactly as he predicts absolutely hilarious. Want to stop him, want him to get bored, take the gasoline and matches away from the no award voting morons. Link

On Camestros Felapton’s blog he elaborated:

Please allow me to clarify as we had the discussion about withdrawing over at SuperversiveSF behind the scenes. I wont withdraw either nomination and it has absolutely nothing to do with Vox. We have fans who voted for both in good faith, I don’t know how many but quite a few people contacted both to say they voted for us long before anything was announced. Link

Strange Horizons

No comment. In the Strange Horizons ebook sampler that was included in the Hugo Voter Packet, their editor-in-chief Niall Harrison addresses the puppy in the room:

I should address the puppy in the room, briefly. This year, we are one of
the hostages on this year’s Rabid Puppy slate.

We discovered this during the nominations period, and discussed
whether or how to respond. It should, but perhaps does not, go without
saying that we do not support the aims or philosophy of the Rabid Puppies,
and do not want them to support us. Strange Horizons has for sixteen years
been working to help open up the SF field to the widest possible range of
voices. The Rabid Puppies are trying to close it down, and, if they can’t do
that, to burn it down instead.

There are a variety of valid opinions on how to respond to the actions of
the Rabid Puppies; indeed, different strategies will work best for different
creators, groups, or voters. Our considered response is straightforward: to
not allow ourselves to be forced from the road, and to keep doing our work.

BEST FANZINE

Black Gate

No comment.Black Gate has declined nomination. They did the same last year, as did the Black Gate writer Matthew David Surridge whose monumental Sad Puppies takedown is still worth reading.

Several folks I admire, including George R.R. Martin and John Scalzi, are urging nominees not to withdraw, and for excellent reasons. However, the reason that’s paramount to me, my desire to step aside in favor of a worthy publication not on the slate, outweighs those considerations. Link

Castalia House Blog

I’m pretty sure they’re delighted.

File 770

There are so many comments that I don’t know which should be included.

Superversive SF

The Sad Puppy mouthpiece from last year announced it has gone full Rabid.

It’s no secret that the Rabid Puppies dominated in a way that is unprecedented in the history of the Hugos. It was an SJW massacre of epic proportions. But what does this mean? We got nominated because of a slate. This is slate voting. It’s time we all admit it – Sad Puppies is not that, and wasn’t at the very least since Brad Torgerson started taking reader input into account, but the Rabid Puppies absolutely are. It is the slate of Vox Day. And honestly, I think everybody here knows that. We know “Space Raptor Butt Invasion”, a parody story by a guy who calls himself “Chuck Tingle”, was not going to be nominated unless people voted based entirely on Vox Day’s orders, and in impressively consistent concert. This is pretty much undeniable.

[–] Does this bother anybody? It shouldn’t. It doesn’t bother me. We’ve been growing a fanbase since we started, and the fact that the Sads AND the Rabids both had us on their lists does mean we’re leaving a mark. Link

Update: In the comments, Kieran Sterling Holmes set me straight — the above announcement is written by one of the people behind Superversive SF, and all others don’t agree with him. On the site, there has been another post in which Kieran (who decided to leave the whole semiprozine for good because they didn’t turn down the nomination) explains why he disagrees with some of the opinions put forth in the discussions in Superversive SF headquarters.

Since diversity is one of SSF’s goals, I encourage the group to rethink their position on things like the RP slate. [–] Outside of dire circumstances, life to me has always been about how you play the game. And with luck it always will be.

In this case, I feel certain that playing the game justly demands stepping away. If not from the nomination, which is not my call, then from SFF. And so I go. Link

(See also the comments by Sci Phi Journal editor Jason Rennie in Best Semiprozine section — I guess he is one of the people running Superversive SF as well.)

Tangent Online

No comment from the fanzine that has been siding with the Sad Puppy campaign.

BEST FANCAST

8‐4 Play

No comment.

Cane and Rinse

@DHartleyWriter Thank you! It seems that we may have benefited from their ignorance, but we hope to make good from it in some small way.

HelloGreedo

No comment on the Hugo mess but I do love the enthusiasm of this video.

The Rageaholic

No comment.

Tales to Terrify

Being associated with the Rabid Puppies slate is terrifying for the Tales to Terrify.

We just wanted to let our listeners and the science fiction community know that we did not know we were on the Rabid Puppies slate. We would never agree to be on their slate. We have never agreed with either the Sad or Rabid Puppies, or their ideas about what science fiction should be and who should write it, or their bullying tactics. We do not support the Puppies’ attempts to ruin the Hugo Awards. We are disgusted that we were drawn into their ugliness without our knowledge. In the words of someone close to Tales to Terrify, “this has been like being presented a polished turd.”

We’re all sickened by it. Tales to Terrify and the entire District of Wonders has always (and will always) celebrate a diverse range of voices, be they authors, narrators, or editors. We do not agree on shutting anyone out or any form of discrimination. Link

BEST FAN WRITER

Douglas Ernst

The former soldier, Milton Friedman enthusiast and conservative pop culture blogger hasn’t commented on the Hugos.

Morgan Holmes

The Castalia House blogger hasn’t commented on the Hugos.

Jeffro Johnson

The Castalia House blog editor has stated many times that SFF readers would be better off writing about books rather than stirring up controversy. That would be sort of a nice thing to say in case it was coming from someone other than the dude working for the principal controversy stirrer, wouldn’t it?

As to the controversy surrounding the Hugos, I get that a lot of people want to talk about that but really, I just don’t have too much to say that hasn’t already been said on the topic. Several people have suggested that we would better off writing about the books we love rather than fussing and fighting so much. And while I have a small stockpile of popcorn laid back for the coming months, I will say that I’m fairly well in agreement with that sentiment. Link

Christian Quinot

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER

Pierce Brown

No comment.

Sebastien de Castell

No comment.

Brian Niemeier

Superversive SF activist Brian Niemeier considers himself a friend of Puppies of every description.

To all of the science fiction fans who selected the finalists for the 2016 Hugo Awards, especially my readers and Puppies of every description, I’m honored to make the following statement: I accept the nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Link

Andy Weir

Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, has been a weird political football in the Hugo culture wars. Last year, various Sad/Rabid Puppy activists, such as this one, considered the fact that Weir hasn’t won a Hugo as proof of the literary left-wing social justice bias among the Worldcon fans. However, when the final numbers were released, it became clear that without the Puppy campaigns, Andy Weir would have been a Campbell Award finalist, and The Martian would have almost made it into the ballot as well.

I haven’t been able to find a quote by Weir himself, but Steve Davidson mentioned in File770 that he had contacted Weir about this:

“I asked Weir to publicly repudiate the slate inclusion. He has responded that he does not get involved with politics.” Link

126 thoughts on “Rabid Puppy Finalists’ Reactions, Compiled”

Thanks for this. Just a note – Cheah Kai Wai is likely the real/ legal/ birth name. I suspect that “Benjamin Cheah” is an adopted anglicised name – this is a fairly common practice in East/ Southeast Asia

Also, Marc Aramini had left some comments at File770 regarding his nomination in this thread:

I came over from File 770 for the Stephen King with corgi pic, and it did not disappoint! Thanks for putting this together. I intend to consider everything and rank on merit, but it is interesting to see the various reactions.

You can’t do very bad with a corgi! I plan to read (or at least start reading) everything and look for good things, as well. My votes don’t depend on what the finalist has said, but that background information gives some perspective.

Thank you for putting this together. My Hugo voting will be a combination of “No, you can’t slate yourself a Hugo,” and “But guess what? No, you don’t get to veto crowd favorites by slating them either.” So it’s helpful to know which nominees fall into the “slate yourself a Hugo” category, and there’s nothing like seeing what nominees have to say to help me figure that out.

Call me overly cynical if you will, but I am inclined to be deeply dubious about the guys saying they don’t have any feelings one way or the other about being gamed onto the ballot by Beale’s shenanigans. It’s all very well not choosing sides, but surely you have an opinion when a side drafts you?

I wish I could find it again, but I think when Beale announced his Campbell slate, Andy Weir was asked what he thought about it and he said he was ‘apolitical’. I’d guess he falls somewhere around where Seamus Young is, and I consider him a hostage as opposed to a Pup.

Since you are compiling a list, I thought I’d help out… I am at present inclined to accept the finalist slot, since I had some pre-RP and non-RP support for the story being a Hugo contender. If I have hard evidence that the votes for “Asymmetrical Warfare” were just from RP, I might reconsider my position.

Like some others, I’m a bit skeptical of the whole “no opinion” B.S. I understand finalists wanting to avoid controversy, but pretending one is just above it all or has no opinion is irritating, weak sauce.

Jason Rennie of Sci Phi Journal did comment extensively on this. He refused to withdraw as a point of honoring the fans who nominated him — but then admitted, in exchange for a bribe of sufficient size, that he’d be willing to withdraw.

Hi JJ, as far as I can tell Jason is quite serious that enough people were interested in voting for his projects–SciPhi Journal and SuperversiveSF–that being on the RP slate was not essential for those nominations. Along these lines it should be remembered that both projects were on the SP list as well. And he is also pretty sincere about not insulting the people who voted for those projects.

Such sentiments were widespread at SSF. While Spacefaringkitten posted the essay by Anthony at SSF, who basked in the RP slate, behind the scenes that was definitely not the only opinion. Many who were in the discussion of dropping the nom seemed to align with Jason’s views.

My position was diametrically opposed to Anthony’s, and while I understood Jason’s arguments, did not find them compelling. As such I decided to leave SSF*. They allowed me to write a sign-off essay, which details the points Jason and others made during discussions and why I ended up disagreeing with that choice:

Strange Horizons have made a comment in the intro to their Hugo Packet submission.
“I should address the puppy in the room, briefly. This year, we are one of the hostages on this year’s Rabid Puppy slate.
We discovered this during the nominations period, and discussed whether or how to respond. It should, but perhaps does not, go without saying that we do not support the aims or philosophy of the Rabid Puppies, and do not want them to support us. Strange Horizons has for sixteen years been working to help open up the SF field to the widest possible range of voices. The Rabid Puppies are trying to close it down, and, if they can’t do that, to burn it down instead.
There are a variety of valid opinions on how to respond to the actions of the Rabid Puppies; indeed, different strategies will work best for different creators, groups, or voters. Our considered response is straightforward: to not allow ourselves to be forced from the road, and to keep doing our work.”

Guessing Erin Dies Alone was slated because it’s published on The Escapist, a site which has unfortunately hosted an increasing number of GamerGators (Grey and Yahtzee are their only regular contributors left who aren’t part of that nonsense to my knowledge).

ksterlingh: Hi JJ, as far as I can tell Jason is quite serious that enough people were interested in voting for his projects–SciPhi Journal and SuperversiveSF–that being on the RP slate was not essential for those nominations. Along these lines it should be remembered that both projects were on the SP list as well.

As no totals will be released until after the ceremony, Mr. Rennie can believe anything he wishes. That does not mean that he is right — and I think that the totals, when they are released, will show that neither Sci Phi nor Superversive SF would have been on the ballot without the slating (just as The Sci Phi Show’s nominations last year appeared to be almost exclusively from slate nominators).

ksterlingh: And he is also pretty sincere about not insulting the people who voted for those projects.

He may be sincere about not insulting his own fans, but he has no ethical compunction whatsoever about repeatedly showing contempt for the Hugo Awardss and for Worldcon members who are, according to him, “brain damaged morons” and “head injury patients”. And yet he chose not to decline his nominations despite the fact that they were not honestly earned.

I have nothing but contempt for people who embrace cheating as a way to enhance their own personal gain, and who would abuse the Hugo Awards process to achieve that. The people on the slate who fall into that category will be placed below No Award on my ballot, exactly where they belong.

“but he has no ethical compunction whatsoever about repeatedly showing contempt for the Hugo Awardss and for Worldcon members who are, according to him, “brain damaged morons” and “head injury patients”. ”

No, I said the No Award crowd were morons, can I take this as an admission that you know that WorldCon’s offical position is that No Award was the way to go? That they are actually taking sides and lying when they say they don’t?

That’s a nice attempt on your part to try to avoid accountability for your words, but it’s failing.

5,950 ballots were received last year, and 3,495 people placed “No Award” first in the Novella category. So that’s 60% of the Worldcon membership you are calling “brain damaged morons” and “head injury patients”.” That is certainly showing contempt for the membership, who have for decades had the right to use No Award when they felt something did not belong on the ballot. You are insisting that those people do not have the right to make that judgment. That is showing extreme contempt, all right.

And you have shown complete and utter contempt for the Hugo Awards by openly participating in and supporting the gaming of the nominations process. If the Hugo Awards were a school with an Honor Code, you and the rest of the Puppies would have been expelled.

“WorldCon’s offical position is that No Award was the way to go” [sic]

Wow, what a load of crap. If there’s a WSFS and/or Worldcon position, it’s that people should read/watch and vote their own preferences. Apparently, many folks’ preferences were to No Award slated garbage. (shrug) I’m not seeing a problem.

Hi JJ, you could be right about how the voting went. But I can also understand Jason’s viewpoint… even if he turns out to be incorrect… since he spent a lot of time and effort building an audience among the SPs/RPs.

I can’t defend Jason’s position for having accepted the nomination, other than to say he believes what I said above, and that he didn’t seem to consider it cheating or unethical.

To me, whether it was cheating or not, it carries enough of the semblance of unethical behavior–for several reasons–that I didn’t want to seem to be supporting it, or–as would likely happen–have it occur again.

I can’t tell you how to deal with such nominations. I thought No Award was a bad idea last year and I still consider it a bad idea. If nothing else it is driving SPs into the RP camp.

Contrary to Jason, I do hope some rules are put in place to undermine deliberate slate/block voting. This seems the best course of action. I mean one of Anthony’s arguments for the RP slate is that the Hugo’s deserved to be undercut since they had a weakness allowing them to be gamed by 200 people. Ok, then fix that hole. I do find it odd that some puppies claim the hole is a reason to attack, while others use efforts to fix the hole as evidence people are trying to do something nefarious.

(side note to spacefaring kitten: thanks! I couldn’t reply to your reply directly so I am putting it here)

I don’t need to deny the obvious, everybody who voted no award last year was a moron and did _exactly_ what Vox wanted them to do. That was the dumbest possible response and you invited what happened this year. Changing the rules wont work apart from creating an explicit blacklist and those will be win conditions for Vox. Vox has happily been saying this from the beginning. Anybody who does exactly what their opponent wants, when the opponent announces it, is an idiot.

And this site is the same as SuperversiveSF, but nobody likes your stuff enough to bother nominating it apparently. It’s ok, I understand. I wont rub it in.

Jason, you’re unfortunately barking up the wrong tree. JJ has nothing to do with running this site — which is, I happily admit, probably nowhere near Superversive SF in terms of popularity.

I don’t need to deny the obvious, everybody who voted no award last year was a moron and did _exactly_ what Vox wanted them to do.

Speaking of the second part of your statement, that may or may not be the case, but why should the Hugo voters care about what Vox Day / Theodore Beale says he wants? His victory condition goalposts seem to be eerily omnipresent everywhere at once and that tells us how seriously we should take them.

I would argue that there’s nothing wrong with voting No Award over works that are not good enough according to every individual voter’s subjective criteria. You can disagree, but I haven’t yet seen anybody make a good case for that argument. What you’re actually saying here is that the Puppy nominees last year should have won because they were good according to your own subjective criteria. As an editor of a philosophy-oriented magazine, do you recognize the logical fallacy in there?

No Vox has clear victory conditions. Show the awards are a joke and make people he doesnt like lose their minds. It is obviously mission accomplished on the 2nd and also the 1st for many people.

At this point it is just amusing watching everyone scurry around and try to “fix” the awards without just making an obvious blacklist.

Fixing the Hugos and getting Vox to leave it alone is trivially easy to do but based on conversations with people like Kevin Standlee (Kevin someone, ive butchered that im sure) that would mean the tiny group of voters that have controlled it in the past would lose their leverage and that is what they want protected.

But it is easy to fix as i said, increase the voter base as Bruce Schenier said (lowering the poll tax would help a lot) and remove the gasoline and matches of no award from the stupid people. If they dont like a work they can abstain.

Want to really piss Vox off? Do that and make sure he wins a Hugo. That is the last thing he wants because that would be antithetical to his whole point and persona. I can tell you all of this confident in the reality that it will never be done because you all hold the Hugo up as some sort of religious fetish.

Vox will keep playing till it gets boring. Reading the works and voting for them without all the petulance is boring, the histrionics is entertaining.

Jason: But it is easy to fix as i said, increase the voter base as Bruce Schenier said (lowering the poll tax would help a lot)

And see, this is where you and all the rest of the Puppies get it so wrong.

The Hugo Awards aren’t about letting everybody in the whole world pick them. The Hugo Awards are about the people who attend and support Worldcons giving out their convention’s awards.

Having 100,000 people participate in the Hugo Awards would completely change the character of the awards. They’ve gotten to be the most prestigious award for SFF precisely because of the group who’s been selecting them.

Now you don’t have to agree that the Hugo Awards recognize the kind of works you like. That’s fine. Go participate in the free-for-all Dragon Awards, and let the Worldcon attendees to continue doing their thing, as they did for six decades before the Puppies decided to come and childishly poop in the punch bowl.

You know, if the Puppies had actually put up excellent works last year, you could have made a case for your argument. Instead you chose to put up a bunch of works that ranged from okay to execrable. You proved yourselves wrong, when you claimed there were a lot of excellent works being overlooked — because apparently you couldn’t find any of them to nominate.

There is no “poll tax” to vote in the Hugos. (By the way, go look up the definition of “poll tax” — because you’re making yourself look foolish by using the term when you clearly don’t know what it means.) There is no fee to vote in the Hugos. Hugo nomination and voting privileges are just some of the benefits which come with being a member of, and supporting, Worldcons.

You don’t give a shit about Worldcon. Why should you be demanding that the Worldcon people give out their awards to what you like? Why should you even care what the people who spend thousands of hours planning and volunteering to put on their convention every year do with their awards?

Do you understand what an incredible big baby you sound like when you complain about what a group of con attendees and supporters do with their awards, and demand that they give them to YOU want?

The unjustified sense of entitlement you big babies have is just unbelievable.

But it is easy to fix as i said, increase the voter base as Bruce Schenier said (lowering the poll tax would help a lot) and remove the gasoline and matches of no award from the stupid people. If they dont like a work they can abstain.

I think NA is a useful tool to have in hand for the cases where work of questionable quality makes it into the final ballot. Why would preferring “No Award” to any of John C. Wright’s novellas, for example, be a symptom of stupidity? We all have our tastes.

Why would preferring “No Award” to any of John C. Wright’s novellas, for example, be a symptom of stupidity?

Don’t you know? It’s because everyone else is a wrongfan having wrongfun, and that cannot be allowed….

@Jason

You’re absolutely right in that Day has clear victory conditions. Where you’re wrong, oh so wrong, is that you don’t realise that those conditions are “Furiously moving the goalposts”. Regardless, I hope you enjoy yourself, and that you continue to engage with the wider audience that you have been catapulted to.

As I said before, I think you will find the general reaction to be illuminating.

Hi Jason, you know I agreed the No Award last year was a wrong move, and am sympathetic to its general removal. But why do you feel changing nomination rules wouldn’t work outside of a blacklist? I thought the tiered nomination process looked promising, though I don’t like the down voting version. And wouldn’t that simultaneously fix the elitist clique problem that SPs have been complaining about?

You say in a later comment: “Want to really piss Vox off? Do that and make sure he wins a Hugo. That is the last thing he wants because that would be antithetical to his whole point and persona. I can tell you all of this confident in the reality that it will never be done because you all hold the Hugo up as some sort of religious fetish.”

Mmmm. From a relative outsider’s perspective, I have to say that rings wrong in both directions.

A person that consistently puts himself and others he knows on a slate for an award would seem to have some interest in it. That is to say, it hardly seems like that is the “last thing he wants”.

And given the degree of concern and effort taken to effect this particular award–plus comments about how much it used to be worth in the past–there seems to be a level of fetishization among some on the SP/RP side as well.

To me both sides seem to be fighting over a totem, one side which feels that idolators have taken to profaning it for too many years, and the other that people have taken to profaning it now.

Also from a later comment: “… histrionics is entertaining.”

Well not to everyone. I can only hope it returns to the good ‘ol boring days of reading and enjoying fiction. That’s what I was signing up for 🙂

Can you possibly run me through your reasoning against having a No Award option available?

I mean, the argument that I’ve heard is — I think — that there has been too much log-rolling in Hugo voting and the process should be democratized, or something along those lines. Isn’t it ultimately democratic to have this option available for the Hugo voters?

It makes sure that nothing that the majority dislikes can ever win the trophy. The way Puppy supporters speak about it almost seems like they think it was put in place last year specifically to unjustly attack them.

ksterlingh: I thought No Award was a bad idea last year and I still consider it a bad idea. If nothing else it is driving SPs into the RP camp… To me both sides seem to be fighting over a totem, one side which feels that idolators have taken to profaning it for too many years, and the other that people have taken to profaning it now.

Why should Worldcon members be forced to give awards to works which they don’t feel are worthy of an award?

There aren’t “two sides” here. There are the Puppies, and there is everyone else.

Worldcon voters have been happily giving out their Hugo Awards for six decades. Suddenly, here comes a group of wreckers who are apparently jealous that somebody else has something nice, who decide that they want that nice thing for themselves, and who try to bully the people who own that nice thing into giving it to them.

Hence their continual whining about No Award: “Waaaaah! You were supposed to let us bully you into giving us your awards!”

The Puppies have demonstrated that they’re a bunch of big whiny baby cheaters with an unjustified sense of entitlement, who don’t give a shit about Worldcon’s convention or its members. Why should Worldcon members care what those wreckers think about No Award? Why should Worldcon members be obligated to give their Hugo Awards to those wreckers?

Changing the voting rules wont work ultimately because the problem isnt the voting rules. The problem is that the voting body is too small.

If 200 organized people can upset the apple cart so trivially then changing the rules isnt going to stop that. You might be able to mitigate it a bit but the fundamemtal flaw isnt the rules. Vox can still easily mess up any ballot that doesnt simply have a blacklist of voters or books, and he will trumpet doing that as being the political litmus test it is.

For everybody whining that “maybe the puppy works suck”, people ran the numbers last year and based on amazon rankings and rating they are empirically superior to what was previously nominated in recent years.

More than that, i cant take such a whine seriously from people who put “if you were a dinosaur my love” on the ballot.

The fix is to greatly increase the voting body. Then a small organized group cannot dominate. You will note that the voting expert (Scheneir) said that and he is right.

You have to wonder why people are so resistant to doing the one thing that is sure to work to solve the problem. If i was given to a conspiratorial mindset you might almost think there was a small cabal behind the scenes that quite liked having a tiny voting body they could easily dominate without having to spend much money.

But that would be crazy tinfoil hat stuff. I mean they released the voting data as promised so everybody could analyze it and check for that sort of thing and it came up clear … oh no wait, they promised too then suddenly changed thier mind with some bullshit about privacy concerns and rejected all offers from experts for help on avoiding that problem.

Jason: I mean they released the voting data as promised so everybody could analyze it and check for that sort of thing and it came up clear … oh no wait, they promised too then suddenly changed thier mind with some bullshit about privacy concerns and rejected all offers from experts for help on avoiding that problem.

Firstly, they said they would release the nomination data to selected individuals specifically for the purpose of testing EPH as long as they were satisfied that the data could be sufficiently anonymized. There was never any intention of releasing the nomination data to all and sundry and no promises were ever made this this would happen — and there was never any intention, nor promises made, of releasing it so that the Puppies could try to prove the existence of their Tinfoil Hat Tor Cabal Conspiracy.

They didn’t reject all offers of assistance from experts in achieving anonymization. They got the assistance they needed from the experts they chose. Did they allow Puppies with a hostile agenda who offered to “help” with anonymization to have access to non-anonymized data? Of course not.

The Puppies, who have deliberately attacked Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, are not “owed” anything by Worldcon. Get over it.

jwrennie: Which is what you do when you have something to hide, just like they did with the Nebula nomination data.

You’re still being a big whiny baby with an unjustified sense of entitlement, Jason. SFWA and the WSFS are both private organizations, with the right to operate the Nebula and Hugo Awards as they sit fit, and no obligation (apart from that specified in their Constitution and ByLaws) to release any nomination and voting data just because some assholes come in and demand it.

jwrennie: If there is nothing to hide and the data clearly showed a “puppy slate” and no others the data would have been released. But instead, paying voting members were told to piss off and the data was hidden.

No, the data has never been released in the past, and was never going to be released to the public at large. Claiming that this somehow “proves” that there is “something to hide” is indeed Puppy Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy talk, and saying it makes you look like an idiot.

jwrennie: You can’t complain about conspiracy theories when you engage in behavior that looks exactly like a cover up. Open sharing of the anonymous data would have proven the existence of a cabal or not. That was the quickest and simplest way to end all of the arguments. It is telling that option was not exercised.

You’re still operating under the delusion that Worldcon owes anything to a bunch of big whiny baby wreckers who tried to come in and take over their Hugo Awards.

Grow the hell up. You and the Puppies aren’t owed anything — and your continual demands for things to which you are not entitled just make you look like the conspiracy-theory loonies you are.

I am thinking about adopting the Steve Davidson method, and voting for one and then in second place voting No Award emulating everyone last year who decided to make sure no one got an award if their favorite did not

“The Hugo Awards aren’t about letting everybody in the whole world pick them. The Hugo Awards are about the people who attend and support Worldcons giving out their convention’s awards. ”

There we have the unvarnished Truth, the Hugos are to be restricted to the “Right Sort” not the lumpen masses. And how DARE the proletariat decide to pay their dues and contend with their betters for nominations. It is true I have never been to a Worldcon. I was a supporting member last year and this year I decided to attend, After all I stayed at the Intourist Hotel in Moscow the last night it was open before they started demolition, So might be best to see Worldcon and the Hugos before they too are gone.

kentuckydan: There we have the unvarnished Truth, the Hugos are to be restricted to the “Right Sort” not the lumpen masses. And how DARE the proletariat decide to pay their dues and contend with their betters for nominations.

This is no secret. Nomination and voting rights in the Hugos have always been allocated only to attending supporting members of Worldcon. What is wrong with that? They are Worldcon’s awards.

No one has a problem with the Puppies buying supporting memberships and participating in the Hugo Awards. What people have a problem with is the way the Puppies decided to exploit the process to cheat things onto the ballot, instead of participating as genuine individuals.

As I said above, if the Hugo Awards were a school with an Honor Code, the Puppies would have been expelled.

You should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you — including you, kentuckydan — for behaving like spoiled whiny babies instead of participating genuinely in the process. Shame on you.

The Hugos will be around a long time after the exploit is closed up and you losers get bored and go find something else more vulnerable to the cheaters you are.

“What people have a problem with is the way the Puppies decided to exploit the process to cheat things onto the ballot” Cheat is a word that has a distinct meaning why don’t you tell us what Rules were broken? BTW your opinion of people buying supporting memberships for others so they can vote No Award is??

Let me see? Last year I paid my Supporting membership fee, got my package read them and voted the ones I liked, Don’t need your permission to do the same this year either, You elitist (epithet deleted)

Tell us what Rules were broken? BTW folks another word that has been misused is “slate” In this years collection for Best Novel the Puppies had a list of 133 different works submitted by over 400 people. Many words could be used to describe this list but calling it a slate is a flat out Lie. But Goebbels did say that if you tell an Lie often enough , Long enough and Loud enough some people will take it as the truth, The other categories are about the same, Compare that with their detractors whose want people to vote for a single work or just vote No Award now THEY are the ones who promote a slate want to see the Puppy Lists for this year? Here yah go,

Last year when I stumbled onto this whole controversy, I did some reading on blogs on both sides the two things that made up my mind were 1) The unprincipled bigot who claimed the reason Brad Togerson was married to a Black women was to hide his racism (be a big surprise to their daughter) and 2) when I read someone soliciting people to pay for memberships so those who might not be able to afford them could vote the “right way” right way = how jj wants votes to be cast, After that the concept of honor imo rested on only one side and NOT the side who called the leaders of the Sad Puppies old white misogynists when one was in fact a Female Latina naturalized citizen. and for the record had no idea before who this VOX guy is nor to my knowledge have I ever read anything by him

kentuckydan: The unprincipled bigot who claimed the reason Brad Togerson was married to a Black women was to hide his racism (be a big surprise to their daughter)

Who did this? Legitimate Citation required. That never happened.

What actually did happen was that Torgersen’s racist and sexist comments were rightly pointed out (he claimed repeatedly that the women and minority persons who’d been getting Hugo nominations were merely Affirmative Action nominees, and didn’t actually deserve them), and BT’s response was “I can’t be racist! I’m married to a black woman!” which is of course, completely ridiculous. There have been a number of virulent racists who were married to people whose race they despised, just as there have been many sexists who were married to women.

Of course, BT tried to spin this as people claiming that he married his wife as a shield against having his racism pointed out — which was also completely ridiculous. No one actually said this — so you “made up your mind” based on a lie, because you couldn’t be bothered to actually find out the truth. You must be very proud.

kentuckydan: when I read someone soliciting people to pay for memberships so those who might not be able to afford them could vote the “right way” right way

Again, that did not happen — so, again, you “made up your mind” based on a lie, because you couldn’t be bothered to actually find out the truth. Boy, what a paragon of Honor you are (NOT).

People were given supporting memberships on a first-come, first-served basis with no strings attached. There was no requirement to vote in any way, and no discrimination on who got the memberships. I saw several Puppies post that they were going to request one. (Did you know that Michael Z Williamson donated some of those memberships? Was he buying votes?)

Here are the Worldcon scholarship recipients’ own words. It’s clear that at least a couple of them are Puppies. Most of them don’t mention or care about the Puppies, they were just not able to afford to participate and were thrilled at having the chance to do so.

>Go and read their stories. And actually read them; don’t do what is clearly your usual half-assed method of not actually finding out the truth.

Then come back here and explain to me again why you’re an honorless, unethical Puppy.

I wouldn’t bother kentuckydan, poor JJ is clearly the usual social justice warrior lunatic. There is no reasoning with him, he isn’t capable.

You are of course right about the affirmative action mentality of his ilk. Look at the Nebula Awards this year. Everybody cheering it was all girls, nobody actually talking about the stories being any good.

What do you expect from loons that got “If you were a dinosaur my love” on the ballot? They are impossible to take seriously.

jwrennie: I wouldn’t bother kentuckydan, poor JJ is clearly the usual social justice warrior lunatic. There is no reasoning with him, he isn’t capable.

Dan has the opportunity here to replace the lies that he’s bought into with the truth. Why are you trying to stop him from doing that?

jwrennie: You are of course right about the affirmative action mentality of his ilk. Look at the Nebula Awards this year. Everybody cheering it was all girls, nobody actually talking about the stories being any good.

You are, of course, wrong about this — reviews raving about those works are all over the internet, but you’re determined not to admit their existence, because it proves your assumptions wrong.

But of course, this is the sort of diversionary tactic I would expect from one of the loons that got “Wisdoms from my Internet” on the ballot last year. You Puppies are impossible to take seriously.

Alright now, I wish to remind everybody who comments here that Extradimensional Happy Kittens blog has a couple of policies in place. Policy #2 is “Be nice”. Chances are that being rude won’t get your point across, even if you think the people you’re speaking to is an idiot.

kentuckydan:Last year when I stumbled onto this whole controversy, I did some reading on blogs on both sides the two things that made up my mind were 1) The unprincipled bigot who claimed the reason Brad Togerson was married to a Black women was to hide his racism (be a big surprise to their daughter) and 2) when I read someone soliciting people to pay for memberships so those who might not be able to afford them could vote the “right way” right way = how jj wants votes to be cast

Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but your view that everybody who disagrees with X Puppies is wrong because somebody who somewhere, sometime held the same opinion said something offensive feels rather simplistic to me.

1) I’m sure nobody in their right mind considers Torgersen a classic Klansman or a white supremacist. He has behaved quite badly towards people of color in this mess and invented nasty names to call people who want diversity in the genre. Undoubtedly, some people have called him nasty names too (and some people have called him racist because they feel his opinions are racist — not just to call him names).

2) You’re completely misrepresenting what happened. Author Mary Robinette Kowal offered to buy memberships for people who couldn’t afford them, selected randomly, so that more people can get involved. Your claim that she wanted them to vote “the right way” is false — in fact, she said the complete opposite.

Hi Spacefaringkitten, sorry about the delay in replying. I’m in Europe so sleep/work cycles can put me behind.

Before saying anything about No Award I want to make clear that I don’t think it was some invention to oppress anyone. And while I am sympathetic to calls for it to be removed as an option–which I’ll get to–I’m not hard-nosed about it. Frankly, I am pretty new to all of this and understand my views don’t hold much weight. So I think of my position as more suggestions from a relative outsider, and not some expert that thinks he gets to tell people what to do.

Basically “No Award” is kind of a downer. I was surprised when I discovered that option existed. From an artist’s perspective, it would really suck to have one’s work treated that way. And it’s not clear to me why NA is required to achieve the effect you stated. Maybe I am a bit naive about voting rules but if the majority wants something to be an award, wouldn’t that by default prevent anything disliked by the majority from getting the award? And if for some reason a mechanism were needed, couldn’t it be something a bit less negative and insulting to the artists involved?

For example, I’m currently liking the three step nomination process being discussed, though not the version with the down voting. It seems that could just as well be captured by expressing interest in works, period. It doesn’t need a negative vote. I think Eckerman at 770 suggested having three options to rank each nominated work, something like “Hugo worthy”, “Will consider”, and just leaving it blank. As a bonus that would also remove the expectation people be familiar with the works during the middle selection round. Those that don’t show community interest simply would not advance, without delivering what sounds like a verdict of bad quality… even if for many that is exactly why they left it blank.

Ok, then there is the practical reality. I agree that if you just did not like JCW’s works and NA is an option, then there is nothing wrong with your voting NA. But it seemed pretty clear at the time some people were going to use NA differently. I agreed with George Martin’s arguments against that kind of voting, and so will not repeat those here. The more important point is that results indicate people did used it differently. At least it is as hard for me to believe so many people “disliked” the obviously popular & skilled productions that got No Awarded last year, as it is hard to believe so many RPs loved Chuck Tingle this year. 🙂

To me this shows that NA is not the most reliable tool. To make matters worse, from a practical standpoint, it’s indiscriminate use drove SPs into the RP camp. I explained in my sign-off letter why that didn’t make sense to me… but I have to deal with reality, which is not always logical. People felt hurt and this result made the author of the RP slate look like a prophet. Not good for anyone, besides the provocateur in question.

Basically “No Award” is kind of a downer. I was surprised when I discovered that option existed. From an artist’s perspective, it would really suck to have one’s work treated that way.

Well, theoretically, you could use it to bully artists and be nasty, but I don’t see that happening, really. Last time NA won before last year was in 1977, I think, and I don’t know how the people behind the De Palma’s Carrie, Anderson’s Logan’s Run, Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth or Heffron’s Futureworld felt about it. Hopefully they weren’t devastated.

In case I feel that none of the finalists are year’s best in SFF, I do prefer the chance to get my opinion registered with the NA option. It’s a fan award, after all, and fans are a tough audience. It should be an honor just to be shortlisted and that gives the artists exposure in a very dedicated group of readers, so I don’t think they really have that much to complain about. So, if I was in the WSFS business meeting and somebody suggested scrapping the NA option, I’d vote against it.

Maybe I am a bit naive about voting rules but if the majority wants something to be an award, wouldn’t that by default prevent anything disliked by the majority from getting the award?

Well, look at the shortlist last year. In many categories, it was completely overrun by a smallish minority — 20% of the nominators or something like that if I remember correctly. It means that the opinions of the other 80% were rendered meaningless. Then, in the final vote, they could only vote for things that the block-voting minority (or rather the few individuals who put the slates together) had chosen in the first round. You couldn’t vote for the majority’s favorites in the final voting round.

Ok, then there is the practical reality. I agree that if you just did not like JCW’s works and NA is an option, then there is nothing wrong with your voting NA. But it seemed pretty clear at the time some people were going to use NA differently. I agreed with George Martin’s arguments against that kind of voting, and so will not repeat those here. The more important point is that results indicate people did used it differently. At least it is as hard for me to believe so many people “disliked” the obviously popular & skilled productions that got No Awarded last year, as it is hard to believe so many RPs loved Chuck Tingle this year. 🙂

Yeah, I agree with Martin as well in general, even though I feel that in elections it is up to the individual voters to decide how they want to use their votes and there is no one correct way.

I voted No Award over everything in short fiction categories, because I didn’t consider the 14 Puppy finalists or the one non-Puppy finalist that good. On the other hand, I marked some Puppy candidates like Skin Game, Lego Movie, fan writer Jeffro Johnson and four editors (long form) above the No Award.

I wouldn’t really call much of the No Awarded stuff popular and skilled productions, but we all have our individual tastes. With “Totaled” by Kary English and “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, it was a tough call and on another day I could have put them above NA as well, but when I thought about all the better stuff forced out of the ballot, NA became my choice.

Hi SFKitten, fair enough! I’m still sympathetic to its removal, but understand people might like that sort of option.

“Well, look at the shortlist last year. In many categories, it was completely overrun by a smallish minority — 20% of the nominators or something like that if I remember correctly. It means that the opinions of the other 80% were rendered meaningless.”

True, of course this is when we are talking about a slate artificially amplifying a minority’s interests in a way that jam-packed categories. I guess I should have said “under normal circumstances.”

And then for cases like this, I think mechanisms need to be put in place to mitigate slate/block voting. It is a bad deal for everyone if NA is the best tool left to handle that situation.

“I wouldn’t really call much of the No Awarded stuff popular and skilled productions…”

Oh… yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest many/most NAs were for popular/skilled productions. Point taken.

Hi JJ, I agree people should not be allowed to bully others. Remember, I was against the SP3 and RP campaign methods last year, and RP methods this year. I also think changes to voting procedures makes sense to hinder slate effects.

“There aren’t “two sides” here. There are the Puppies, and there is everyone else.”

To be fair, I was being glib with my two sides comment. There are more than two sides. And there were prominent Worldcon members who were against the blanket NA last year, so its not like my view some people overreacted in their use of it is controversial.

About lumping SPs/RPs together… While I am not an SP, I thought this year’s SP campaign was run well and deserves credit–and distinction–from the RPs. Refusing to distinguish between the two, especially when one group responded in a positive way to criticism, is inaccurate and arguably counterproductive.

“Why should Worldcon members care what those wreckers think about No Award?”

My own arguments against No Award are perhaps different than theirs. You can check my reply to SFKitten above for details.

Why everyone should care about SP/RP opinions is that they exist and are making an issue about it… and they react according to those feelings. Ignoring it is not going to make them or the issue go away. Let’s assume everything you said about them is true. They are still there and so it becomes important to figure out how to make them “give a shit” about Worldcon, and not hate it even more. We can see what calling them names did last year, right? Maybe it is time to try a different course than venting and punishment, no matter how justified your anger might be.

And no, I don’t mean Worldcon should hand out awards on demand. But trying to address the concerns of those that are open to conversation about a shared future does not require that. I really encourage you to step back and relax for a moment. Look at what happened this year. A group of SPs took positive steps, arguably trying to meet “everyone else” half way. Isn’t that worth some credit and some effort to build bridges?

ksterlingh: About lumping SPs/RPs together… While I am not an SP, I thought this year’s SP campaign was run well and deserves credit – and distinction – from the RPs. Refusing to distinguish between the two, especially when one group responded in a positive way to criticism, is inaccurate and arguably counterproductive.

At this point, I don’t see any reason to differentiate. The Sad Puppy leaders invited VD and his toxic sycophants in. Sad Puppies who disagreed with this had the opportunity to walk away then — but from what I’ve seen, very few chose to do so. By staying, they gave the Rabid Puppies their endorsement.

We now have to deal with VD and his idiots because of the Sad Puppies.

The SP campaign this year was poorly run (it was poorly publicized, the stated new member recruitment goals were ignored, it had too low of participation to prevent gaming by bad actors *cough* Declan Finn *cough*) — but I agree that it was not the cheating campaign that they waged last year.

But it’s a toxic brand, because of incredibly bad past Sad Puppy behaviour — SPs who want to be taken seriously need to find a new name for their movement. “Sad Puppy” is irretrievably tainted — and that is the Sad Puppies’ collective fault.

ksterlingh: Why everyone should care about SP/RP opinions is that they exist and are making an issue about it… and they react according to those feelings. Ignoring it is not going to make them or the issue go away.

When little kids scream and throw tantrums, good parents put them into TimeOut or ignore them. What they don’t do is give the screaming kids what they want — all that would do is reward and reinforce the bad behaviour, encouraging more of it.

If the SP/RPs want to be taken seriously and have their opinions considered by all the other Worldcon members, then they need to stop behaving like big whiny babies and start acting like decent adults — which includes participating in the Hugo nomination process honestly, instead of cheating.

ksterlingh: They are still there and so it becomes important to figure out how to make them “give a shit” about Worldcon, and not hate it even more.

I think that this is a futile hope — because the Puppies who are doing this aren’t going to ever give a shit about Worldcon, and there is nothing you can do or say which will “make them care”.

They are participating because of greed at trying to get Hugo nominations for themselves and their friends and their publishing houses, or they are participating because they think they are advancing some sort of political agenda, or they are participating because they are the sort of mentally twisted people who enjoy hurting others.

They are not the sort of people who care about anything but what they themselves want — if they were that sort of people, they would have been participating honestly in the Hugo process to begin with, instead of cheating.

You can’t instill a sense of Honor in people who don’t have one. If they don’t have it to begin with, you’re not going to be able to put it there.

Your acknowledgement SPs ran a clean–if not well managed–campaign seems pretty important, especially given your call for people to act like grownups. Using your own analogy, if children start behaving after a time out and yet you keep punishing them for past wrongs then you have removed any incentive for them to continue behaving.

It can’t be all stick.

“But it’s a toxic brand, because of incredibly bad past Sad Puppy behaviour — SPs who want to be taken seriously need to find a new name for their movement. “Sad Puppy” is irretrievably tainted — and that is the Sad Puppies’ collective fault.”

Not sure where to start, so I will start where we agree. Frankly I thought the name was terrible to begin with. What a bummer. And yes, with the RPs around I thought it would be smart of them–particularly if they were changing campaign methods–to break from the past and potential false associations with a new name. I can’t remember now if it was in public at the site or in private emails with Jason, but I know I argued this point somewhere.

That said… it is a bit silly to demand they change their name. Responses should be based on their current actions, not their name.

“You can’t instill a sense of Honor in people who don’t have one. If they don’t have it to begin with, you’re not going to be able to put it there.”

In a sense I agree, this sort of task would be hard and in some cases impossible. But I think you are painting way too many people with much too large a brush here. All of them don’t have a sense of honor? Take care not to let emotions–no matter how justified–cloud your sense of proportion and reason.

In the end, you will have to live with some of these people. Sometimes moving forward toward peace requires letting go of past wrongs. And yeah, that goes for both sides.

I see you have your hands full with Jason, so we can end things here if you want.

ksterlingh: That said… it is a bit silly to demand they change their name. Responses should be based on their current actions, not their name.

I’m not demanding that they change their name. I’m pointing out that as long as they continue to use it, they’re continuing to bear the legacy that comes with it — and therefore they can’t complain that they continue to be saddled with the baggage that comes with it. It’s their choice… but it doesn’t seem a terribly intelligent choice to me at all.

I certainly do appreciate your reasoned discourse and responses. It’s nice to have exchanges with someone who behaves like an adult.

Hi Jason, I think we may have to agree to disagree about whether altered rules could be effective. The multiple step nomination process may not catch all things during the first nomination round, but the next two should mitigate most effects. At least that is the way it looks to me.

I agree that more voting members would be better as well, but having been part of convention-type award events in the past I’m not sure if making voting totally free to the public is plausible.

“… people ran the numbers last year and based on amazon rankings and rating they are empirically superior to what was previously nominated in recent years.”

I’m agnostic on the quality of most written works on last year’s ballot as I haven’t read them, and FWIW didn’t vote because I hadn’t. But I am a bit dubious using amazon rankings to declare anything “empirically superior”. If Mao’s little red book got sky high ratings due to mass interest by enthusiasts of Chinese-style communism, my guess is you wouldn’t view that as a sign it was empirically better. 🙂

You bring up the dinosaur story as an example of something that was not very good. But wouldn’t the multiple step nomination process address these kinds of concerns? If its presence was due to an elite clique, than that would be undercut during successive rounds, right?

I think amazon ratings and more importantly rankings are a reasonable proxy for quality. Nothing will be perfect but for a collection of u assigned texts that nobody is forced to buy it probably works alright. These are books people pay for and continue to pay for (or not) as the case may be.

Quality is somewhat subjective as should be obvious and the Hugos are simply a popularity contest.

We have all seen fawning reviews written of things we regard as garbage, look at the virtue signalling antics of todays SF-SJW’s. Nobody wants to be the one who stops appluading first.

Changing the voting rules wont make much difference though because the voting body is too small. I didnt say make it free but make the poll tax smaller. It isnt like they pay people for the stuff in the Hugo packets.

Also, one thing the clown brigade have neglected to consider. If it is ok to change the rules when you cant get your way, what do they propose to do when the VFM’s decide to buy attending memberships and turn up and propose changes and get them voted on? There are a lot of them, growing all the time, they have disposable income and they have a grudge.

They have made it repeatedly clear they regard any tactic deployed against them as fair game and have demonstarted repeatedly an ability to be better organized than their opponents.

As i said at the start. This is entertainment for most of them. Turning up.to worldcon with cameras rolling, posting all the bad behavior directed at them to youtube and filing complaint after complaint for the treatment they receive will just be more entertainment.

When it would all go away if people simply read the works and voted like adults. But SJW’s always double down.

Jason: I think amazon ratings and more importantly rankings are a reasonable proxy for quality.

Of course they’re not. Amazon and Goodreads ratings are a joke. I’ve seen books on Amazon which were poorly-written self-published books, but had 50 5-star rankings because they got all their friends and relatives to post ratings. I’ve seen excellent books which had boatloads of bad 1-star reviews because some griefer on a forum somewhere got all their buddies to do a pile-on to an author they don’t like, for political reasons.

As far as overall popularity, there are already awards for that: bestseller lists, and piles of money. But overall popularity is not necessarily any marker of quality *cough* 50 Shades of Grey *cough*.

I challenge you, Jason, since you seem to have this bizarre fixation on that 2013 dinosaur story: Please list for me 5 Novels, 5 Novellas, 5 Novelettes, and 5 Short Stories which were published in 2013 that you think were Hugo quality. I see lots of complaining from Puppies about the dinosaur story, but — despite being asked repeatedly to do so — none of them can manage to point to more than one or two specific books and stories from the last 10 years which they say should not have been on the Hugo shortlist — nor are they able to provide an extensive list of the highly-deserving works they claim were supposedly overlooked.

Jason: If it is ok to change the rules when you cant get your way

But that isn’t what is happening here, is it, Jason? Worldcon members aren’t trying to “change the rules when they don’t get their way”. They’re fixing a known vulnerability in the nomination process because a bunch of cheating assholes decided to exploit that vulnerability.

Jason: what do they propose to do when the VFM’s decide to buy attending memberships and turn up and propose changes and get them voted on? There are a lot of them, growing all the time, they have disposable income and they have a grudge.

The griefers may pay $40 to cause a ruckus on the internet — but paying $200, plus $600 hotel, plus driving or flying expenses, to show up at a convention they’re not interested in, and get up early every morning for 4 days to sit through 2-3 hour meetings, to try to get the WSFS rules changed when there are hundreds of people who will vote their proposals down? Yeah, nah, that’s a cute dream on your part, but it’s not going to happen.

Jason: When it would all go away if people simply read the works and voted like adults.

A great many people did this last year, Jason. There are reviews all over the internet. You keep claiming that the people who voted No Award did not read the stories — but you know perfectly well that what you’re saying is not true.

What you really mean is that you think people should have not voted No Award, no matter how crappy they thought the works were. What you really mean is that you think people should have given Hugos to the subpar works which had been gamed onto the ballot.

Sorry, but the Hugos are not awarded for mediocrity.

People did read the works. People did vote what they really thought, like adults. And yet that didn’t make the Puppies go away. So your “magic solution” is really worthless.

Jason: Changing the voting rules wont make much difference though because the voting body is too small. I didnt say make it free but make the poll tax smaller.

You’re repeating yourself here — repeating something I’ve already debunked above. This certainly makes it look like you don’t bother to read or listen to what anyone else says, you just keep repeating the same tired falsehoods over and over.

The Hugo Awards aren’t about letting everybody in the whole world pick them. The Hugo Awards are about the people who attend and support Worldcons giving out their convention’s awards.

Having 100,000 people participate in the Hugo Awards would completely change the character of the awards. They’ve gotten to be the most prestigious award for SFF precisely because of the group who’s been selecting them.

Now you don’t have to agree that the Hugo Awards recognize the kind of works you like. That’s fine. Go participate in the free-for-all Dragon Awards, and let the Worldcon attendees to continue doing their thing, as they did for six decades before the Puppies decided to come and childishly poop in the punch bowl.

I’ll say it again: There is no “poll tax” to vote in the Hugos. (By the way, go look up the definition of “poll tax” — because you’re making yourself look foolish by using the term when you clearly don’t know what it means.) There is no fee to vote in the Hugos. Hugo nomination and voting privileges are just some of the benefits which come with being a member of, and supporting, Worldcons.

Hi Jason, I see what you are saying but I’m still a bit dubious on the amazon thing. I’ve bought books that were selling well, which means it added to their “popularity” by that measure… and they sucked. And some of the best books I’ve read came from used book stores or borrowed from friends.

“I didnt say make it free but make the poll tax smaller.”

Sorry about that. My mistake.

“If it is ok to change the rules when you cant get your way, what do they propose to do when the VFM’s decide to buy attending memberships and turn up and propose changes and get them voted on?”

That is an interesting question… but what are VFM’s? I mean I assume I get who you are talking about, but I don’t recognize the acronym.

“But SJW’s always double down.”

Doesn’t anyone believe people can change anymore? 🙂

Honestly though, I think things can’t improve if past errors keep getting held against people, and–worse still–people get placed in boxes which declare they are incapable of being better. This can become a self-fulfilling/perpetuating prophecy.

As I said with JJ, I see you guys have your hands full so we can end this here if you want.

“I see what you are saying but I’m still a bit dubious on the amazon thing. I’ve bought books that were selling well, which means it added to their “popularity” by that measure… and they sucked. And some of the best books I’ve read came from used book stores or borrowed from friends”

Nothings perfect and it is just one measure and taste is always going to be somewhat subjective. That being said it is a useful measure to some degree. If you want to say current Hugo nominees are as good as older ones then you need some way to measure it and the older Hugo books rate higher and consistently rank higher it seems. Part of that is that they are classics, but it would seem that modern Hugo winners have zero staying power. At the very least this indicates whatever the qualification is for winning a Hugo, it has changed over time. What the voters pick and what people buy and rate well are not the same thing.

That depends. The problem is that you have two groups, one side says “everything was lily white and above board in the past” and the other says “Nonsense, private slates, log rolling and all the rest has gone on for years”. You know which way I side.

There is a solution, sanitize and release as much of the complete voting data from the past as possible and let everybody interested analyze it and publish their method and results (You know all scientific and reproducible like). That would settle the issue once and for all. Either the log rolling and secret slate voting would be obvious or there would be no evidence of it.

Then the issue could be definitively settled. Some how I suspect the data would show the Puppies were right and would expose parties who insist everything was fine as liars. After all, look at what they did with Nebula voting data when there was complaints about log rolling and the like there. They “solved it” by hiding all the voting data.

The data could be properly anonymized and still very useful without any difficulty. I work in the medical industry, we know how to make useful patient data anonymous.

jwrennie: There is a solution, sanitize and release as much of the complete voting data from the past as possible and let everybody interested analyze it and publish their method and results (You know all scientific and reproducible like). That would settle the issue once and for all. Either the log rolling and secret slate voting would be obvious or there would be no evidence of it.

This is not a solution. Assholes will always find a reason to be assholes, and rational evidence will not dissuade them. Example Number 1: Last Year’s Hugo Results. It was definitively demonstrated to the Puppies that, contrary to their claims of representing a Big Silent Majority, they actually only represented a Small, Big-mouthed Minority. Did that get the Puppies to say, “Oops, we were wrong — we believed that we were an overwhelming majority, and it turns out we were a very small minority, and we’re really sorry about all the problems we’ve caused, and we’ll just go away now.”? No, of course it didn’t.

jwrennie: The issue needs to be answered before peace is possible.

The only kind of “peace” Puppies are willing to settle for is getting Worldcon voters to give rockets to the mediocre works that the Puppies dishonestly slated onto the ballot. Yeah, nah, that’s not going to happen.

“We now have to deal with VD and his idiots because of the Sad Puppies”

JJ, you really are as sharp as a bowling ball.

You have to deal with Vox because you decided to attack Larry and then Brad rather than be adults. You brought this on yourself.

As to a Poll tax, “In the United States, payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states.”, registering is pretty much exactly what a poll tax is, whatever other benefits go with it. You have to pay to vote.

Looks its fine, you are just pissy because other people paid their fee and voted in ways you don’t like and now you are butt hurt over it. It’s fine, we know SJW’s always project.

jwrennie: You have to deal with Vox because you decided to attack Larry and then Brad rather than be adults. You brought this on yourself.

Larry invited VD in long before anyone said anything disparaging about him or Brad. Don’t you know your Puppy history?

As far as “being adults”, the big whiny baby cheater Puppies are the ones who need to grow up. Worldcon members were behaving perfectly fine before you lot decided to throw your big tantrums.

jwrennie: As to a Poll tax, “In the United States, payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states.”, registering is pretty much exactly what a poll tax is, whatever other benefits go with it. You have to pay to vote.

A Poll Tax very specifically refers to charging people money to participate in government elections. WSFS is not a government. The term “poll tax” does not apply here (and I can’t believe that I actually had to spell that out for you — didn’t you have Government class in high school???).

jwrennie: you are just pissy because other people paid their fee and voted in ways you don’t like

I am pissy because I care about the Hugo Awards, and because I have an intense dislike for integrityless cheaters like the Puppies.

Do you have any idea how incredibly infantile your “SJW” parroting makes you sound? Seriously, how old are you? Have you even graduated from high school yet? Most people grow out of behaving the way you do shortly after kindergarten.

“A Poll Tax very specifically refers to charging people money to participate in government elections”

That is your objection to the use of the word Poll Tax? You really are a spergy little pedant aren’t you.

“I am pissy because I care about the Hugo Awards”

Apparently you are pissy because other people dared vote in ways you think are UnGoodThink(tm). It seems you are ultimately pissy because the Vox did what Harlen Ellison observed everybody had been doing quietly for years, but did it publicly and wildly successfully.

jwrennie: That is your objection to the use of the word Poll Tax? You really are a spergy little pedant aren’t you.

Is it acceptable to call a registration fee a “poll tax” or any type of tax at all? Is it acceptable to call a hammer a jigsaw? Of course not. As a blogger, aren’t you supposed to have a better command of the English language than that?

I’ve said this twice already, but you clearly have some severe reading comprehension problems, so I’ll say it again:There is NO FEE to participate in Hugo nomination and voting.

You keep demanding that Worldcon lower or remove something that does not exist.

Really, if you’re incapable of understanding such a simple concept, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously?

jwrennie: Apparently you are pissy because other people dared vote in ways you think are UnGoodThink(tm).

I am pissy because you and your buddies are a bunch of conscienceless, dishonorable CHEATERS who don’t give a shit about Worldcon, but thought it would be acceptable to come in and hijack Worldcon’s Hugo Awards for your own selfish reasons.

Harlan Ellison is a great writer. He’s also a crusty old curmudgeon who voices a lot of opinions which come from his very particular worldview but have very little basis in reality. Any time you’re quoting him as your justification, you’ve already lost the argument.

The nomination vulnerability is going to be fixed, and then you and the rest of the big whiny babies you hang out with will have to go find something else you can cheat at.

“Really, if you’re incapable of understanding such a simple concept, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously?”

So that is a yes on being a spergy little pedant. Got it. You do have to pay to vote in the Hugos, no associate membership, no vote. You can dress that up how you like, it wont change the reality.

“I am pissy because you and your buddies are a bunch of conscienceless, dishonorable CHEATERS who don’t give a shit about Worldcon”

Seriously, it’s ok, we get it, we are better at working within the rules to achieve our ends than you are and it really annoys you. You don’t have to keep repeating yourself.

“The nomination vulnerability is going to be fixed, and then you and the rest of the big whiny babies you hang out with will have to go find something else you can cheat at.”

Are you sure about that? Everybody seems pretty butt hurt about EPH not being the magic bullet they hoped it would be (duh, it never was going to be). The only two viable fixes are more voters or a black list. All the rest of the shenanigans being indulged in will simply approach the latter over time. You don’t have a large enough voting body to avoid it being vulnerable.

But don’t worry, i’m sure you’ll get to the blacklist in a few years and solve the problem that way and the Hugos can get back on track to being the social justice awards for pretentious lefty message drivel.

So that is a “yes” on your being incompetent with the English language.

The point of the Supporting Membership is to support the Worldcon. If you don’t want to support Worldcon, don’t pay it. But stop demanding that they drop their Supporting Membership fee to make it less expensive for you big whiny babies to cheat at Hugo nominations.

jwrennie: we are better at working within the rulescheating to achieve our ends.

There, Jason, fixed that for you. At least you could own the fact that you’re a cheater. But I guess that would be expecting honesty from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated their dishonesty.

And yes, I’m quite sure that the nominating vulnerability will get fixed, despite your wild fantasies to the contrary.

“The point of the Supporting Membership is to support the Worldcon. If you don’t want to support Worldcon, don’t pay it. But stop demanding that they drop their Supporting Membership fee to make it less expensive for you big whiny babies to cheat at Hugo nominations.”

I’m not demanding anything, i’m telling you how to fix the problem you are whining about. Don’t take my word for it, take Bruce Scheniers word for it. Unless there is some reason the current crop of Hugo voters don’t want more people involved. Can’t possibly imagine what that would be.

“At least you could own the fact that you’re a cheater”

You have to break a rule to cheat. No rules broken, no cheating. Unwritten rules about only letting GoodThink(tm) on the ballot aren’t rules, but I can see why you are annoyed that Vox “broke it”.

” I’m quite sure that the nominating vulnerability will get fixed”

Yeah I know, its called a blacklist. The vulnerability is the small voter pool but you are terrified of fixing that for some reason.

You keep calling the puppies “whiny babies” but the pups didn’t hand out anus coasters last year or any of the rest of the utter screehing childishness, all they did was buy a membership and cast a vote.

jwrennie: You have to break a rule to cheat. No rules broken, no cheating.

I see that your incompetence with the English language also extends to the word “cheating”:act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage

That is exactly what the Puppies did. At least be an adult enough to own it.

jwrennie: i’m telling you how to fix the problem you are whining about

No, you’re the one who keeps whining about how Hugo voters blocked your cheating last August. It’s not fair! Brad and Larry knew that No Award existed, and they didn’t tell you about it when they conned you into playing their childish game! You’re very bitter about that.

And your so-called “fix” is not a fix at all. As long as you refuse to understand what the Hugo Awards are about (hint: they’re not the GoodReads popularity awards, but that’s what you’re trying to make them), you’re going to continue being a shining exemplar for Dunning-Kruger.

jwrennie: You keep calling the puppies “whiny babies” but the pups didn’t hand out anus coasters last year or any of the rest of the utter screehing childishness

The Pups are the ones who decided that they’re “anus coasters” (but then, little kids are always into scatological obsessions like playing with their own poop, so they figure everyone else thinks that way, too).

And the Puppy behavior has been nothing but utter screeching childishness since Larry first started whining about wanting a Hugo Award three years ago.

You’re still in grade school, aren’t you? That’s the only explanation I can think that would explain all your childish behavior in the comments of this post, and your seeming obliviousness to how you Puppies really all do sound exactly like big, whiny babies.

The puppies did everything out in the open at all times. Nothing was hidden. All the squealing about cheating didn’t start till after the succeeded. That’s just sour grapes dude. But it’s alright, I understand.

“No, you’re the one who keeps whining about how Hugo voters blocked your cheating last August. It’s not fair! ”

I never particularly cared they did that once it was clear the way the screeching fanatics were going. Disappointing that they opted to be children at the awards and it really was a display of unmitigated spite but on the whole I thought it was an unqualified win for the puppies. Everything Larry had said was shown to be true.

“As long as you refuse to understand what the Hugo Awards are about”

No I get it. You don’t want a wider voting base because a wider voting base vote for UnGoodThing(tm) and you can’t stand the thought of that. It’s why the award was heading for irrelevance before Larry breathed some life into it with his puppy related hilarity.

BTW, just so you know, this frothing screeching rage you continue to exhibit is going a long way to continuing to convince me not withdrawing was the way to go.

jwrennie: The puppies did everything out in the open at all times. Nothing was hidden.

Cheating in the open is still cheating, Jason. You can try to spin it all you want — but it’s still cheating.

jwrennie: All the squealing about cheating didn’t start till after the succeeded.

That’s certainly not true, either. There was plenty said about what incredibly bad behavior the Puppies were exhibiting, from the moment the slates were published. You can’t rewrite actual history just because it suits your narrative.

jwrennie: on the whole I thought it was an unqualified win for the puppies. Everything Larry had said was shown to be true.

You can try to spin it as a “win” — but the reality was that it was a repudiation of what the Puppies were claiming. It proved that Larry was wrong. There was no “small cabal”. There were just a vast majority of Worldcon members who liked things that the Puppies didn’t, and who didn’t appreciate the Puppies’ cheating.

When the vast majority of the members are generally happy with what’s been getting on the ballot, that’s not a small, secret group operating, as Larry and Brad and the rest of the Puppies were whining. It was a large group of Worldcon members putting on their awards program.

jwrennie: You don’t want a wider voting base because a wider voting base vote for UnGoodThing(tm) and you can’t stand the thought of that. It’s why the award was heading for irrelevance before Larry breathed some life into it with his puppy related hilarity.

The Hugo Awards have been doing just fine, and are anything but irrelevant. Thousands of bookstores and libraries were buying Hugo finalists, because those were in great demand by their customers. The number of participants had been growing for years before the Puppies decided to try to hijack them.

And you got your “wider base” last year, didn’t you? You Puppies, who spend so much time reinforcing each other in your little echo chambers, were convinced that you were some huge majority and that you were going to sweep the Hugos with all your supporters.

Instead, it turned out that you were a small, pathetic minority who wouldn’t have even have had any impact if it weren’t for the griefers that VD brought in.

As long as the Puppies keep trying to cheat the Hugos, there will be genuine SFF fans flocking to join and prevent that. Wait til you see how many people vote this year.

jwrennie: this frothing screeching rage fact-based, rational supported arguments you continue to exhibit is going a long way to continuing to convince me not withdrawing was the way to go.

Jason, Jason, you really need to work on your command of the English language. You don’t know what the correct terms are for a great many things.

You don’t really think I ever thought you would withdraw, did you? I knew that you wouldn’t. Cheaters don’t withdraw. I’m sure that you never, for one nanosecond, considered withdrawing. That would be the sort of thing an honest, conscientious person would do — and you certainly wouldn’t be caught dead impersonating someone like that, would you?

But I certainly made my point about what a hypocrite you are, which is what I intended.

And all you’ve done is keep digging your hole deeper and deeper. So well done you. 😀

And to my readers — If you can afford it, I encourage you to buy a membership to WorldCon and become part of fandom. If you cannot afford it… I will buy a supporting membership to WorldCon for ten people, chosen at random, who cannot afford it. I am in no way constraining how that member nominates or votes. All I ask is that you read the nominations and join the conversation.

FURTHER EDITED TO ADD: One More of the nominees (and some other fans) have reached out to me and asked if they can match my pledge. They want to do it anonymously to avoid swaying anyone’s vote. In addition, Ellen Klages has also donated ten memberships* SO that means there are TWENTY THIRTY FORTY-FIVE FIFTY-FIVE SIXTY-FIVE SEVENTY-FIVE EIGHTY-ONE ONE HUNDRED supporting memberships available. I encourage others to reach out to your own communities as well.

JJ gets the special prize for being the 100th commenter on this thread. 🙂

For any readers who are wondering what’s going on, here’s a quick summary of the discussion between JJ and Jason Rennie:

JJ: Slate voting was cheating.
JR: A-ha, no rules were broken.
JJ: It’s dishonest, whether rules were broken or not.
JR: No rules were broken. But I do hate how No Award won in many categories.
JJ: It’s the voters’ right to use No Award when they feel something doesn’t belong on the ballot.
JR: It’s moronic, and everybody who voted no award last year was a moron.
JJ: You’re calling 60% of the Worldcon membership morons there.
JR: It’s because they are. Also: the dinosaur story was total crap. The voting body should be much bigger and the attending membership fee lower.
JJ: I disagree. Hugos should be an award of the dedicated SFF fan community, not everybody.

I apologize for violently over-simplifying your points there. Of these disfigured straw man arguments that I just made up, I more or less agree with JJ until the very last bit of dialogue.

There are no other qualifications for becoming a Hugo voter than giving money for the Worldcon. The Hugo voters aren’t having inherently better taste than non-Hugo voting SFF readers — hell, Iain M. Banks and M. John Harrison (and a dozen of other great writers) should have their closets full of Hugos but they don’t. Even though the membership is obviously well-read, it’s still a popularity contest and the winners tend not to be the most innovative works around, even though some pretty good stuff has been awarded throughout the years.

I’m not sure you disagree with JJ that much either. I think the process uses “prepared to pay $X to support WorldCon” as a proxy measure for a “dedicated” SF fan. There are obvious flaws in this, including the potential exclusion of fans who can’t afford that amount, but short of administering a test I can’t think of a better method right now. (And a test is a silly idea – if it was multiple choice, all the choices would be correct!)
Where the criticisms of the electorate fall down is by not understanding that what gives the Hugos their USP is that the electorate is bigger than a juried award but lower than ‘just everyone’, so that voters get involved because they care. It’s not necessarily the single best way to run an award, but there are plenty of others using different methods if someone prefers those, and the Hugo method has a track record of overall success (while making its fair share of dodgy choices, of course).
Increasing the electorate is a perfectly valid idea, and can be achieved by improving its public exposure and possibly by trying to reach people who are put off by the cost, with MRKs membership drive being a good example. Where people such as Jason go wrong is by calling for more voters but expecting “someone else” to achieve it for them. WorldCon is a volunteer effort, so put their effort where their mouth is. WorldCon supporters made significant efforts to improve voting levels with initiatives like the recs sheet and wiki, Rocket Stack Rank, MRKs member drive, Con or Bust, etc.

Jason, you’re putting in a lot of time and energy into moaning and griping about something you claim not to care about, and equally you’ve invested time and energy into staying in a competition that you profess disdain for.
At the moment I suspect that you protest too much.

“Jason, you’re putting in a lot of time and energy into moaning and griping about something you claim not to care about”

Honestly not that much, but I was thinking that myself. To be clear, winning doesn’t matter to me, but I do find the whole thing interesting to watch and I have had an interest in the work of Bruce Schenier for a very long time (20+ years on an off). Keep in mind my total “participation” is limited to this thread and one I posted a few times on at Camelos (however you spell it) blog that is linked above. I didn’t even write an editorial for SuperversiveSF this year. I thought about it but never mustered the effort. I have spent more time arguing about the bombing of Hiroshima on facebook over the last week or so than I have spent on the Hugos in total. I do enjoy an argument. I am interested in the outcome i’m just not invested in the outcome if you see the difference. If the Puppies sweep the awards i’ll chuckle, if no award nukes the awards i’ll chuckle, if something else happens i’ll shrug, maybe do some post mortem analysis because the spectacle is interesting.

“and equally you’ve invested time and energy into staying in a competition that you profess disdain for”

Invested time and effort? I said “yes” when asked to accept the nom and spent a couple of hours putting the Hugo packet submission together. How is that a lot of time and energy?

“At the moment I suspect that you protest too much.”

I don’t think so. Just make the distinction. I find the spectacle interesting and entertaining. I’m not especially invested in the outcome at this point. If you see the difference.

Jason, your participation also includes comments on Brad’s blog, and arguing with Steve Davidson on FB, and those are just the places I happen to have run in to you talking about this. Frankly, the shtick you are currently running about not being bothered is contradicted by your own behaviour in this thread, let alone anywhere else. You are so “not invested” that you let one of your contributors leave over the issue? That’s just not credible.
At this point it’s perfectly clear that you’re firmly in VD’s sphere, accepting the nominations he gamed for you, repeating his talking points ad nauseam, all while trying to disguise it all under some cloak of not being bothered.

Sorry i forgot about Brad’s blog, i thought i mentioned talking to Kevin Standlee (?) on Facebook.

I didnt say i wasnt bothered, i said i am not invested in winning i am just enjoying the spectacle.

It is certainly interesting explaining to you how to beat Vox (not his talking point) and watching everybody freak out at the idea and instead insist on doing things that will make the situation worse. That is comedy gold.

Keiran asked to leave, i wasnt paying him to contribute and he can if he wishes and he knows he is welcome back if he changes his mind. I didnt say “change your tune or go”, i said “if that is what you want”. You act like we ran him off for heresy, we dont do that.

Ive never said i wasnt in Vox’s sphere, im not sure what talking points you think im repeating though. I simply express my own thoughts, im a conservative not a leftist we dont bother with centralized talking points.

1. I dont hate that No Award won. If that happens again this year i wont care either. You and JJ care that the award is credible. I already dont think it is. Whatever small credability I think the award and voting body had died before the final ballot was cast. I was disappointed in the display of petty minded spite that was the ceremony but that was more shocking than anything else. Its like discovering people you already know are unpleasant idiots are also covering up for or actually are a gang of kiddy fiddlers. You already know they are bell ends but you didnt realize how bad they were.

2. I am only echoing the sentiment of crypography and voting expert Bruce Schenier that the simplest and most robust fix is more voters. It would actually work to solve the problem. It is telling that this is the one option none of the hysterics will dare consider.

3. Voting No Award as a block slate last year was moronic and insured the result you got this year. It also did a lot of damage to the awards credability and will do more if it happens this year. All of the rule changing games will only reinforce the impression.

Im trying to help you guys. If the Hugos are a laughing stock again this year I wont care (beyond having a good chuckle) but you obviously will. I have no ulterior motive, i dont secretly want to win one. I just think it is funny i can tell you how to fix it and what will instead play into Vox’s hands and you wont listen and will do it anyway.

JasonI am only echoing the sentiment of crypography and voting expert Bruce Schenier that the simplest and most robust fix is more voters. It would actually work to solve the problem. It is telling that this is the one option none of the hysterics will dare consider.

Actually, no, it won’t. The nominating body was considerably higher this year, but unable to overcome the concentrated slate of a small minority of dishonest nominators, because of the Long Tail effect which occurs with the honest nominators. It takes approximately 10 honest nominators to every one dishonest nominator to overcome the unfair slating effect. This has been well-documented, and your claim is in error.

JasonVoting No Award as a block slate last year was moronic and insured the result you got this year. It also did a lot of damage to the awards credability and will do more if it happens this year. All of the rule changing games will only reinforce the impression.

No one “slate-voted” No Award last year. What you got was the vast majority of the Worldcon voters telling you that the works you slated were mediocre. And you’re claiming that Worldcon members “made” Puppies behave like assholes again this year, which is not true. Puppies chose to behave like assholes again this year, and the responsibility for that is totally on the Puppies (who seem to have a serious problem with taking personal accountablity for their actions, despite claiming that they are from a “culture of responsibility”).

The No Award votes actually saved the credibility of the Hugo Awards. If mediocre works had taken home rockets, that would have damaged the Hugos’ credibility. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

JasonIm trying to help you guys. If the Hugos are a laughing stock again this year I wont care (beyond having a good chuckle) but you obviously will. I have no ulterior motive, i dont secretly want to win one. I just think it is funny i can tell you how to fix it and what will instead play into Vox’s hands and you wont listen and will do it anyway.

The only person you’re trying to help is yourself, with your unearned Hugo nominations (yeah, “no ulterior motive”, my ass — I note that your Twitter and blog sites brag about being a Hugo nominee, without mentioning the cheating which acquired that “distinction”).

You’ve repeatedly offered what you claim are “fixes” to the problem, and it has been repeatedly pointed out to you that what you claim are “fixes” actually aren’t, and why. Stop pretending as if you are trying to “help” the Hugos — your dishonesty is blatantly obvious, and you are just making yourself sound pathetic.

Jason:1. I dont hate that No Award won. If that happens again this year i wont care either. You and JJ care that the award is credible. I already dont think it is.

Fair enough. So, why are you on the ballot? Should I conclude that you’re trolling the Worldcon fandom for lulz? If you don’t care, why not just let other people give their awards to whom they wish?

2. I am only echoing the sentiment of crypography and voting expert Bruce Schenier that the simplest and most robust fix is more voters. It would actually work to solve the problem. It is telling that this is the one option none of the hysterics will dare consider.

More people in the Worldcon fandom would be nice, of course. However, there would have to be a significant number (did someone calculate that it’s like 20,000 or something?) new nominators to overcome the Rabid Puppy influence — and that means it’s not going to happen overnight. We need other short-term solutions. Also: possible new voters who are more interested in SFF than culture war (that is, genuine SFF enthusiasts) are not going to get involved now when all that’s available is culture warring. That’s a sorry situation, and it’s hardly the Worldcon fans’ fault, is it?

3. Voting No Award as a block slate last year was moronic and insured the result you got this year. It also did a lot of damage to the awards credability and will do more if it happens this year.

Does it, now? I’m remembering newspaper headlines like “Diversity wins as the Sad Puppies lose at the Hugo awards” and others similar to it. I’m fairly sure that many many people disagree with you and think that No Award winning many categories is what saved the Hugos’ credibility.

I pretty much agree with your summary with the following exception. You said:

JJ: I disagree. Hugos should be an award of the dedicated SFF fan community, not everybody

My actual position is that the Hugo Awards belong to the Worldcon members and should be given by people who support Worldcon — not cheaters who don’t give a shit about Worldcon, but come in and try to hijack their awards for personal gain.

Yeah, I get what you mean — even though defining whose 40 bucks supports Worldcon more than someone else’s and who gives more shits is tricky. No matter what Beale and his co-trolls say, they are more obsessed with the Hugo awards than the average Worldcon attendee who doesn’t care enough to vote. In Chicon 7, for example, there were over 4,500 members but only 1922 voting ballots cast.

2015 was a record year and 5,950 members voted, but even that feels a bit low. I don’t know how it could really be done but that number should be at least doubled or tripled, considering how many SFF enthusiasts there are in the world, and maybe lowering the supporting membership fee would be a move to the right direction. A complete category overhaul would be another. And of course the nominating system should be made more resistant to tactical voting.